oh damn i’ve been trying to remember the name of this one for like 20 years!!!
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In elementary school, my mom came to open house and found I had nothing but pencils like that. Literally sharpened point and eraser, or point and point.
It was a point of pride for me, but she was all, “Why don’t you ask for pencils?”
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That’s an impressively short pencil. I wonder how they get them so short. I can only get mine about this long before it becomes impossible to hold on to them in the sharpener
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oo, (moderately) fancy!
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The real spiderweb heads swear that Exile is better than Avernum, but I started with Avernum 2, never played much Exile. Any thoughts on the matter?
Too many thoughts, but I’ll try to condense them and set a timer for myself.
Short impression: these days I like Avernum better, but I had a long period of mourning for Exile and still miss a few things about it.
I distinguish the Exile games from Avernum in my head in several ways, which I’ll tackle one by one.
Tile-based art v. isometric. Exile 1 and 2 are pretty rough looking, art-wise, but 3 and Blades of Exile end up in a pretty good, consistent place art-wise: bright greens and browns for the overworld, blue and black for underground. The art style of 3 and Blades is what I’d call shareware-timeless - not mistakable for AAA, but they have their charm. The Avernum games tended to a more subdued palette. Lots more gray, but also more detail, contour, and elevation. I like them both, but admittedly miss the old tile-based charm.
Six member party v. four member party. Avernum marked a shift to a four person party, whereas Exile games had six. Six was an intriguing number to play around with, design-wise: it allowed for doubling up on basic roles, like having 2-3 fighters, a dedicated utility character (lockpicking, alchemy, so on), and multiple divine or arcane magic casters. In battles, one could actually fan out the front-liners and protect the spellcasters behind. Four is more lean, and at first I missed the diversity of roles I could have. But I came around: battles are quicker with only four, and I don’t really need the extra roles. Two characters was acceptable fluff to trim.
All the spells v. fewer, more deliberate spells. Exile gave a bunch of spells, like 8-10 per level for arcane and divine, and seven levels total. I’ve never cast some of the spells in a playthrough (Goo, Stumble); some see tons of use (Fireball, Major Blessing). Avernum trims the spell list down to about 20 per list (down from 62) and keeps most of the major hits. They also allowed for one to receive higher training in a spell (up to level 3). I miss a few of the old spells (like Divine Thud), and there is a crunchiness to having the large set of spells available. But I’ve come around fully to Avernum’s more focused, deliberate spells. I do use most of the spells available.
Fighters go thwack v. dedicated fighter abilities. Fighters in RPGs often have a very basic job: they attack. In Exile, one of my main strategies is to buff a fighter (bless/haste) and send them in to thwack. At some point, Jeff Vogel figured out that giving fighters martial abilities made them more interesting, and that worked its way into the Avernum remakes. You can do things like hit multiple enemies, break shields, and so on. It’s good, and one of the things that has brought me around on the Avernum redesign.
More stats crunch v. more skill tracks. In Exile, you get 5 points per level, and you spend those five points on attributes (Strength/Dex/Int), abilities (bladed weapons, thrown weapons, pole weapons, mage spells, priest spells), support stuff (alchemy, item lore, mage lore, lockpicking, disarm traps), and even HP/MP (though you’d get some passive bonuses boosting this). Very crunchy. Avernum games tended instead to either simplified stats (original) or to skill tracks: you invest points in a skill and can upgrade that further or move up the skill track. So here is an endgame character from Avernum 3 (2018), followed by a solo build (midgame) in Exile 3:
Avernum 3 is a whole lot easier to learn: start from the bottom in a track and go up. And I don’t think that much is lost except some munchkin possibilities in min-max building.
Lore, writing, other things. The games have different dialogue systems: Avernum goes for more of a choice-style system seen in many later CRPGs. Exile had more of a select-a-word system that was clunky but playful. There are lots of little differences I could get into, but I’m running out of time.
Anyway, all that is to say that I can see why someone would prefer the crunch of Exile, but especially the later Avernum remakes reached a level of streamlined-but-still-RPG balance that I really like. The only reason I would play Exile 3 now is nostalgia or personal interest. Everything else that I’m getting from the game, a new player could get in Avernum 3.
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what if u like Geneforge
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Y’all drawing a lot?
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I’m only getting into Geneforge with the remakes, so I can’t say much. I do like the basic thoughtspace of “make big tank monster” or “make ton of little gnawer monsters.”
For something completely different, here is the Perfect Strike Feeling.
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